Tuesday, August 18, 2009

i work in a classy part of town

I’ve spent this summer working for a fee billing and revenue management software company as a Market Research Analyst, aka I spend the day inside and office with a bunch of computer nerds programming, while I made a million phone calls to important banking people that didn’t really want to talk to me.

Located in the always classy downtown area of Oakland, California, my office is right next door to Gold Teeth Masterz and Billy’s Snacks (and trust me, the kinds of snacks sold at Billy’s are not the kind of snacks that I want). Across the street there is a bank where more dead bodies come out than money goes in, and I know for a fact there is marijuana being dealt at the “dentist office” across the way.

My last day here is on Friday and I’m really going to miss the homeless people, the car crashes, the ghetto kids and the police men. I’ll be returning to Provo, Utah – the land of sober, clean college kids who are honest, hard working and just want to start a family.

The sketchiest street in Provo consists of Ozz Billiards Pool Room, a Chinese computer repair shop and a tattoo parlor that is never open. There are churches on every corner, girls in long shorts and the streets are silent on Sunday afternoons.

No matter how many times I move between California and Utah, it is always a culture shock.